Walking from tent to tent in the Village Green on the Rhodes University campus, one sees plenty of people browsing stalls and snapping photos, kids eating ice-cream, and even the odd dog relishing in sensory overload. There’s a festive buzz that pervades every corner of every tent. However, if you venture off campus and down High Street to Church Square, you’ll be greeted by a very different picture.
In Church Square one is funneled through a very narrow makeshift walkway that is created by stalls. The atmosphere here is very different from that of the Village Green – even the air feels colder. There is a lot less foot traffic – very few strolling families and only a handful of bargain browsers. There’s not much that would make you think it’s part of the second biggest arts festival in the world.
“Business is not too good” says Theresa Lusengu, who sells crafts. “It was better when I was at Village Green – art is supposed to be down there”.
Similarly, another selling clothing described coming to Grahamstown to sell her goods as not worthwhile. “Business is very slow and not what I expected; it’s like a recession,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for about 16 years and this is the worst.”
It gets progressively worse as you move further away from the buzz of Village Green. Fiddler’s Green is a far cry from Village Green and resembles something of a ghost town. It is so barren and lifeless that one would not even say that they fall under the same umbrella event.
“During the day I make R300,” says Helen Mwanza from Cape Town. Mwanza says she does not think she will make profit this year. “I have to pay for food and accommodation. If it doesn’t pick up on the weekend, how will I go back home?”
Maxwell Telejani has a similar unfortunate story. “In seven days I only made R700. I paid R2 500 for the stall, but I don’t think I will make that money back.”
A woman manning an ice-cream stand says that their stand in the Village Green does a lot better than the one in Fiddler’s. “There are more people there. There is nothing here. Up there there are entertainers; here there is only the one tent and people come for the show and then just leave.”
A man who owns a stall selling toys describes the difference as low class versus high class. “[The festival organisers] don’t want people to mix. There is also no investment of money here, nothing is happening here”. “They want to make it difficult for us so we can say ‘we don’t want to come here next time’”.
During the interview he shows me R9 in change in his hand and says: “Someone bought something for R10, but the people that come here struggle to afford that.”
– By Kerushun Pillay
